A new beginning
by Keilfleckbaerbling
Summary: It begun to rain. As if the evening hadn't been bad enough already. A short "New Year's Eve" themed one-shot. Takes place after 6x15 (White as the Driven Snow). Jisbon.


**A/N:** This is a short New Year's Eve one-shot, it takes place in season 6, somewhen after "White as the Driven Snow". I have no idea where this came from. It's rather silly altogether, maybe even a tad out of character, so feel free to ignore it. In case you still decide to read it; feedback is always appreciated.

* * *

 _ **A new beginning**_

It began to rain. As if the evening hadn't been bad enough already. Lisbon run back to her car, fumbling for the keys in her jean's pocket. It took her longer than usual to get them out; her hands felt cold and shook slightly. Lisbon frowned at them. It almost seemed as if her body was betraying her; giving away the emotions she didn't feel or rather didn't want to feel. Finally she managed to open the door and step into the car, closing the door behind her and shutting out everything.

She didn't bother putting the key into the ignition; she just sat there and stared out into the darkness; or almost darkness. A few streetlamps illuminated the entrance to the trailer park and the small cabin beside it, in which a single guy was sitting at the reception. Having to work on New Year's Eve was bad... but not nearly as bad as her evening.

Lisbon closed her eyes for a moment, expecting to feel the pain, to be finally engulfed by it; but nothing. She still felt strangely numb; maybe because she had expected this. She knew it would happen ever since he came back. Just not now, not that evening... not after she'd spent such a nice christmas with her family in Chicago. In retrospect... she should have recognised the signs. Ever since Haibach had targeted former CBI agents Jane had changed. They had saved Grace in the end; he had, but apparently it hadn't been enough. Lisbon knew that he felt guilty, that he blamed himself for it, but she never had said a word about it to him. A heaviness settled around her heart, pulling her down. She should have said something. From the day onwards she'd started to work for the FBI, they had avoided any topics that might be difficult. They never had mentioned Red John, or what had happened after his death. It had been easier to pretend that nothing had changed, that they just could go back to where they'd been back at the CBI. Deep down Lisbon had known that they were living a lie, that she was living a lie. She'd focused on her work, on settling in in Austin... on everything but him. All the while her thoughts had mainly been occupied by him. She thought it would be easier that way, that he would talk if he needed to, that she didn't want to pressure him and instead give him the space and time he needed...always afraid that he might just run away if things became too much, if she demanded more from him than just what they had. In the end it probably had been her silence that had driven him away. Self-fulfilling prophecy, that's probably what Jane would call this, if he would be detached enough to make an objective statement. She had tried to protect herself by keeping him at a distance and by doing so she'd lost him forever.

And that he had left she was sure of. She'd looked for him everywhere; she'd spent the whole day trying to find him; in vain. Finally, only an hour away from midnight and the new year, she forced herself to ask at the reception of the trailer park. It would have saved her quite a few hours of roaming all over the city if she'd done that in the morning.

With a little help from her badge she'd managed to extract the information she needed from the young man behind the counter. Jane had left on the 23 of December, only hours after she had boarded her plane for Chicago. He was gone; airstream and everything. Lisbon clenched her fist. She'd hated the airstream from the beginning, now more than ever. If Jane had rented a flat like a normal person, he couldn't have disappeared just like that into thin air.

Lisbon shook her head. Who was she trying to deceive? It wouldn't have made a difference. Something on the passenger seat caught the reflection of one of the street lights outside, attracting her attention. It was the silver ribbon around a small parcel; her late christmas present for Jane. Lisbon took it in her hands and stared at it for a moment, before she tore the wrapping paper away. She felt a sudden need to see it again and it wasn't as if if mattered now anyhow. Jane wasn't there to receive the present which made the wrapping useless. With shaking fingers Lisbon took the small blue teacup out of the cardboard box. Jane's former favourite cup, that had burst into pieces on the day the CBI had been dismantled. She kept all the single pieces for years and a few weeks back she finally decided to have them fixed; it had seemed like the perfect christmas gift. She followed one of the still visible cracks with her finger and suddenly tears pricked at her eyes. This was it then. After more than a decade, and after everything they went through; he was gone. Without as much as a goodbye? Lisbon put the cup back into the box, afraid that she might drop it. It was now the only thing she'd left. This and all the letters he'd sent to her during his exile in South America. Somehow she doubted that he would continue to write to her. No; not this time. She had always known that if he would disappear again; it would be for good this time.

A sharp knock against her window startled Lisbon. She wiped at her tears and took a deep breath. She couldn't make out the person in front of her, a large object had parked between her and the street lamps, leaving her car in almost complete darkness.

Lisbon finally put her key into the ignition and turned the light on inside the car. She blinked at the sudden brightness and pressed the button that lowered the window. Her right hand moved to her holster; just in case.

"What?" she asked rather unfriendly, but the words died on her lips as she heard his voice.

"Hey, Lisbon." Jane beamed at her, standing in the rain as if nothing had happened. It took Lisbon a few more seconds to realise that it was in fact his huge silver airstream that had moved itself between her car and the streetlights.

"What the hell, Jane!" Hot anger rushed through her. "Where have you been?"

The smile on his face faded, leaving behind a puzzled expression. He shrugged, apparently deciding to ignore her anger for now, "I had some business to attend to."

He looked up into the sky and Lisbon noted that it was still raining, rather heavily in fact.

"Would you mind if we move this discussion in to the airstream?" Jane asked. Her first impulse was to say no, but she bit back her initial reply.

"Fine," she agreed.

Jane stepped back and opened the door for her. Lisbon closed the window and snapped her keys. She didn't say a word as she stepped out into the rain and closed the car. It felt almost surreal, as he opened the door to the airstream and ushered her inside.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" he asked, studying her for a moment. "Coffee is out of the question I'm afraid. You're way too tense already."

"Where have you been?" Lisbon asked again, without answering his question. She should have known better than to try to ignore what he'd asked, this was Jane after all.

He waggled an empty tea cup in front of her and for a moment she remembered his gift in the car.

"Tea?" he asked again, bringing her thoughts back to the present.

"Fine. I'll take your damn tea." She said exasperated and sat down on the small couch. Jane chuckled to himself as he prepared two cups. Seeing him perform such a mundane task, watching him preparing tea as she had thousands of times before; it helped her to calm down and her anger slowly faded. She felt slightly ashamed of the way she'd reacted now.

"So," Jane said as he finally handed her a cup of steaming hot tea. "I think you had a question." He sat down beside her, piercing her with his blue eyes.

"Never mind," Lisbon said, intently staring at her cup to avoid any further eye contact. That much about not avoiding difficult topics. He wasn't even back five minutes and she fell back into old patterns; this wouldn't do.

"Well actually, " she began, "I was wondering where you've been? I tried to get a hold on you the whole day."

Jane sipped at his tea, a pensive expression on his face.

"I went back to Malibu, " he finally said and Lisbon felt as if someone had emptied a bucket full of cold water over her head. How could she have been so stupid not to think about that.

Jane wasn't finished. "I sold the house," he told her. Lisbon didn't know what to say.

"I had no idea that you got it back in the first place," she finally managed to stammer, not daring to ask anything else.

"Yeah, just a few weeks back the FBI released everything back to me." He grinned at her, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It seems Abbott finally trusts me enough."

Lisbon took a deep breath. "How does it feel?" She felt suddenly nervous, as if she had no right to ask those kind of questions. "I mean, selling the house."

Jane shrugged, taking another sip of his tea. "I don't know… it was weird. Being back there, after everything…"

Lisbon hold her breath while he spoke.

"I painted the wall."

She didn't need to ask what wall he was talking about. She could only imagine how seeing the bloody smile again must have affected him; and he'd been all on his own.

"You shouldn't have done it alone, " she said, without even thinking about it. "I would have come with you, if you'd asked." Only then she realised that he might not have wanted her with him and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Jane didn't seem to notice it, or more likely, decided not to mention it; instead he smiled at her. "Thank you, but I think this was something I had to do alone. Besides," he added with an amused twinkle in his eyes, "I didn't want to disturb your harmonic family christmas."

Harmonic was the last word she would have ever used to describe her family, but the holidays had been nice, she had to give him that.

"What were you doing here, anyway?" he asked her, changing the subject rather abruptly. Lisbon flinched slightly at his question. "I told you, I was looking for you."

"At almost midnight on New Year's Eve?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Why not? I was alone and I thought you might be in the same position. It seemed silly to spend New Year's Eve alone, if we could do it together instead." She tried to sound as innocent as possible, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

"You could have called me?" he suggested and then before she could round in on him added. "Oh no, sorry. I forgot, I never turned it back on."

"No you didn't" Lisbon didn't manage to keep the anger from seeping back into her voice. "I've tried to call you hundreds of times the last days!"

He searched her face and and Lisbon felt increasingly uneasy under his intense stare. She could almost see how the wheels in his head clicked.

"You thought I left," he spoke softly, as if could hardly believe his own words.

"No, of course not, " Lisbon lied, her hands playing with the cross around her neck.

"Yes, you did," he insisted. "That's why you were out here in the middle of the night and that is why you were so angry when I arrived."

"No", Lisbon began again, but it sounded even less convincing than her last attempt, even in her own ears.

"i'm so sorry, Lisbon", Jane said, "I didn't even think about how you might interpret this."

"Well, "Lisbon snapped, "you rarely do." She'd given up to pretend that he was wrong and instead gave in to the anger that was starting to come back.

"What person just disappears without a word? You could have said something!"

Jane flinched. "It was a rather spontaneous decision, I didn't plan this in advance. Honestly, I thought I'd be back long before you."

"That worked out great!"

Jane suddenly seemed to remember something. "I told Abbott; I kind of had to, otherwise they might have arrested me at the state border." He grinned at her, but for once it didn't work it's magic.

"Why didn't you call Abbott, " he asked more seriously, "he could have told you where I am."

Lisbon opened her mouth, but closed it again the next moment.

"I see…" Jane looked very touched all of a sudden. "If I had really run off, thereby breaking my contract with the FBI, they would have looked for me. The sooner they would learn about my escape, the more likely they would have been to find and consequently arrest me again." He stared at her in disbelief. "After running away from you again; you'd still try to protect me?"

Lisbon crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Calling Abbott didn't cross my mind," she lied, even if it was pointless because Jane would see right through her.

"Never mind, " she added, "I overreacted; forget it."

Jane slowly shook his head and Lisbon's heart sunk. Why couldn't he just leave it, the whole situation was embarrassing enough.

Jane stood up and placed his empty cup of tea on the counter, then he came back for hers.

"Hey, "Lisbon protested feebly, as he placed her still half full cup on the counter, out of her reach.

"You'll get it back when I'm finished," Jane said as he sat back down.

"Why did you even think that?" he asked her softly, and she knew he wasn't talking about the tea.

"Come on, "Lisbon sighed, "it isn't as if this didn't happen before."

Jane shook his head. "But that wasn't the same. How could you think I would leave you now?" He seemed sincerely shocked by the notion.

Lisbon ignored how her heart flattered as he specifically talked about leaving her, not the FBI, or Austin; her. Instead she said, "Everyone could see that you're unhappy here." Or at least she could, which was all that mattered now. "And don't even dare denying it, " she threatened him, before he could speak.

"You spent the nights on your couch again, you were grumpy towards Fischer…" she lowered her voice. "You hardly ever spoke to me when it wasn't about a case."

"T..that's not true." Jane said and then added under her scrutinising glance. "I mean the last part. I admit, things didn't exactly turn out the way I planned them to…but I never avoided you. It was the other way round. You told me not to interfer with your life and I tried to give you the space you'd asked for."

Lisbon would have loved to dismiss his words, but she knew that there was a certain truth to them. She stared at her hands and could hear Jane taking a deep breath.

"Lisbon, " he only continued when she raised her eyes to his. "I'll never leave you again. Do you hear me? Maybe things are not as perfect as I hoped them to be, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm glad to be here, to be with you. I need you to know that."

She couldn't look away, being transfixed by what she saw in his eyes.

"Okay, "she finally said and she wanted to believe it, she truly did. Jane smiled at her and she couldn't but return it.

"Maybe it's time for a new beginning, "Jane suggested, "it being New Year's Eve and all that."

Lisbon shook her head. "It's no longer New Year's Eve."

Jane glanced at his watch in astonishment. "You're right, " he said, "it's 7 past 12."

He looked up at her and Lisbon chuckled at the horror on his face.

"How could we have missed it? I had plans! I so wanted to wish you a happy new year."

"It doesn't matter, Jane. It's just 7 minutes, " she rolled her eyes at him. "You can say it to me now."

"Sure?" Jane asked grinning, his eyes shinning.

Lisbon chuckled again at his sillyness. "Go ahead."

Only Jane could make such a fuss about nothing. One moment he was smiling at her and the next she felt his hand on her cheek, pulling her gently towards him. He kissed her before she even realised what was happening. It was a short and chaste kiss but it left Lisbon completely undone.

"Happy new year", Jane whispered, his face only inches from hers. Lisbon touched her own lips in disbelief. Had that really just happened?

"Let's toast to a new beginning," he said, never taking his eyes or hands off her.

"We don't have anything to drink," Lisbon was surprised that her voice was still functioning. Jane grinned.

"You have a point. I could get us something-"

Lisbon gripped his arms. "Don't you dare getting up now."

This time, she kissed him and it was anything but a chaste and short kiss. It was the perfect beginning of what promised to be a perfect year.


End file.
